Yvonne eased into one of the many parking spaces surrounding the Athletic Center, trying not to fuss about the injustice of this parking lot situation. It got on her nerves so bad that the Athletic Department was so selfish about this. She kept threatening to park in Gilead Jackson’s spot. But she always changed her mind when she thought about her baby languishing in that Chapel Hill towing parking lot, surrounded by all of those mean dogs.
Yvonne was ten minutes early for her nine-thirty meeting with members of the basketball team’s coaching staff and the athletic director about five of the players who were taking her class. She didn’t have a clue what this meeting was about, and hoped Maurice would be there. Yvonne did not like Gilead Jackson, Kordell Bivens, or Castilleo Palmer, and didn’t want to be in a meeting with those men minus somebody who she knew had her back.
She finished listening to one of her favorite songs, “Jericho” by Senior Pastor Jason Nelson of Greater Bethlehem Temple Apostolic Church in Randalstown, Maryland, right outside of Baltimore. His twin brother, Jonathan, had lit up the gospel music charts with his song “My Name Is Victory,” and was about to do it again with his newest song, “Right Now Praise.” Those twins were some singing fools, and their older brother, James, could preach your shoes off your feet and put them back on, laces tied to perfection. “Jericho” was an upbeat song filled to the brim with Holy Ghost power for being victorious on the battlefield of spiritual warfare. And Yvonne knew she did not need to waltz herself in that meeting without getting girded up just like the Word instructed her to do at the end of Ephesians 6.
Something wasn’t right about this meeting. Yvonne didn’t know what it was. But she knew in her heart that something was up. She dug around in her purse and pulled out a tiny vial of anointing oil, put a few drops in her hand, and anointed her head.
“Lord, keep a blood covering over me in Jesus’s name. Father, give me wisdom and the courage to do Your will in this situation. In Jesus’s name I pray, amen.”
Yvonne got out of the car and made her way to the conference room, which Maurice had told her was on the first floor. This was an impressive building and it was clear that the school had dropped a whole lot of money in it. But she thought her building was much nicer—even if it didn’t have enough parking spaces. There were some definite advantages to being in the Department of Design. They could make sure that their building represented what was going on inside.
Yvonne loved her job. It was the first time in a long while that she’d had a job where she got to do what she loved to do—interior and exterior design, painting, furniture design, and teaching. She worked with some of the kindest and sweetest people on campus, and had great hours for a single mom.
The only problem was that a lot of folk in her department, Yvonne included, did not have permanent, tenure-track appointments. They were contracted annually as consultants, and without benefits. She was paid well—69,000 dollars a year with bonuses for off-campus contracting. But she knew that she needed to be given a permanent, tenure-track position with benefits.
Still, she couldn’t complain because this job had been a blessing. And as her mother told her, God would step in and fix it all in due season. All she had to do was continue to work hard and stay strong in her faith in the Lord. Her main job was to trust Him and He would do the rest. A simple requirement that at times was one of the hardest things a child of the King had to learn to do.
Over the past two years, Yvonne had been able to become debt-free and buy a new car, and could afford a lovely three-bedroom cottage in Cashmere Estates. Right now money, unlike two years ago, wasn’t a problem. But she needed and wanted and deserved more job security. Yvonne was learning, up close and personal, what it really meant to walk by faith.
There were times when it was scary. She’d walk through her house at night, when it was peaceful and the girls were in their rooms happy and content. Then the temporariness of her job situation would send a wave of fear through her entire being. The first time that happened, Yvonne thought she’d lose it. She went and sat on the side of her bed and cried like a baby.
She had come so far and life was so good. Yvonne and the girls loved their home, they had great neighbors, and she was enjoying life for the first time in many years. The mere thought of having to go back to where she had been when Darrell put her out was unbearable. In that scariest moment, Yvonne picked up her Bible and searched for a Word concerning her situation. The only words that she kept hearing spoken softly and gently to her heart were, “Trust Me.” She then turned to Hebrews 11:1, where she was reminded that faith was “the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.”
God blessed Yvonne in that moment and reminded her to remain confidently assured that her hope for a permanent position was going to happen. He also let her know, just as He did Joshua, that He would never leave her or forsake her. Right now, while looking for the conference room, Yvonne was reminded that no matter how things appeared, God was right there by her side.
Yvonne walked down the hall of the Athletic Center. Judging from the austere black carpet and gray walls with red stripes painted in the middle, it was clear that nobody in this department had taken it upon themselves to call her people for some much-needed help and advice.
If Yvonne had been on the design team, she would have laid down black Berber tile carpet, painted the walls a deep smoky gray, and used a brick red on the molding and trim. She would have had the uniforms of past star players on the wall in steel-gray frames. And instead of the plain industrial track lighting, she would have opted for stainless steel lamps that hung low from the ceiling all the way down the wide entry hall.
She found the plain gray door leading to the conference room. It was a lot better than the rest of the area she’d seen, but it had a long way to go before it would measure up to her department’s standards. She could not believe that somebody had ordered that long wooden table in a generic brown that did nothing for the rest of the room. All that was needed was a heavy glass conference table with stainless steel trim and legs, surrounded by black mesh high-back chairs with the same stainless steel trim.
Yvonne was the first one there and had her pick of where to sit. The only problem with this plan, though, was that she didn’t have a clue as to where the head of the table was. There was no telling where the person running the meeting was going to sit.
Curtis walked into the room and lit up in a bright smile when he saw Yvonne sitting at the conference table. He had not seen her since they all had dinner in Raleigh, and he had forgotten how good he felt when he was around that girl.
“Hey, lady, how you be?”
“Good morning, Coach,” Yvonne said in a very polite and formal voice. She had figured that Curtis would be at the meeting and thought it would be easier to see him in a business setting. She and Curtis had had so much fun together in Raleigh, and it was hard for her to believe he could have that much fun with her and then go off and never even think about getting in contact with her. Maybe it was a guy thing, and she wouldn’t understand.
Curtis was caught off guard by Yvonne’s cold response to him. The last time they saw each other had been wonderful. Yvonne had been so sweet and warm until he couldn’t even sleep for thinking about her. Now she was acting as if he’d done something wrong …
Shoot, he thought. Curtis remembered that he’d asked Yvonne if she’d like to have lunch with him on campus. She told him yes, and made it clear that she looked forward to spending more time in his company. Curtis had been around scheming and conniving skeezer types for so long, he’d forgotten what a woman with a genuine reaction to you was like.
He’d also forgotten that genuine and honest women would think that you were jive and playing games if you never followed up on suggestions that you made without their prompting to get together. So of course the girl would be cold and distant. He had given the distinct impression that he liked her and wanted to see her again, and then hadn’t had the decency to make good on his own promise. Curtis smiled again. Yvonne liked him and that was a good thing.
“Let’s try this again,” he said.
Yvonne just looked at him and then put her chin in her hands, elbows on the table.
“I … I …” he began, not really knowing how to say this in a cool way, and feeling as if he were suddenly thirteen years old again.
“Let me see if I can help you out, Coach,” she said. “You made it clear that we should get together for lunch, and then just went about your merry way when it occurred to you that you’re just not that into me.”
Yvonne had been on her own with her girls for two years. In that time, not one man worth a nanosecond of her time had expressed any interest in her. In fact, they acted as if she were invisible. And right now she just didn’t have the patience to pacify a man who enjoyed her company on a short-term basis but was just too much of an idiot to see what a jewel she was. The good thing is that Yvonne knew she was a jewel. It just hurt sometimes that there wasn’t a man around with sense enough to see that she was and act like it.
Curtis opened his mouth to dispute that foolish claim. He was very into Yvonne and regretted how he’d handled her. She was kind, honest, and forthright. And she wasn’t trying to play games and not act as if she didn’t want to be around him. It felt good for a woman to react to him like that.
The door to the conference room opened and Gilead Jackson, Kordell Bivens, and Regina Young walked in. Regina took one look at Yvonne, turned up her nose, and promptly went over to Curtis to make sure that Polly Pocket–looking heifer knew to back off and stay away from her man. Plus, she didn’t like the way Curtis was acting around that woman. He was just too comfortable, content, and slaphappy to be with her. In fact, if her eyes served her right, Curtis was acting just as Maurice Fountain carried on when Trina was around.
Gilead was not happy that Regina had her butt all hunched up on her shoulders over Curtis Parker’s reaction to Yvonne Copeland, Fountain, or whatever her name was. He’d left home at five a.m., under the guise of going to work out, just so he could spend a few hours in Regina’s bed. They had been some good, freaky hours, too. Gilead wondered if Curtis knew that his woman was the kind of freak “you don’t take home to Mother.”
Maybe not, he surmised. Regina complained endlessly about having to be around Miss Doreatha Parker and Curtis’s mother, Miss Daphine. She wasn’t into mothers—especially the mothers of men like Curtis Parker and Maurice Fountain. They were the kind of mamas who always saw past the smoke screen of a woman who didn’t mean right by their boys.
Regina has some nerve, Gilead thought, watching her slip her hand through Curtis Parker’s arm and press into him. And she really believes the world revolves around her.
Curtis had been trying to catch up with Regina for two days but to no avail. She’d been avoiding him and he didn’t know why. But what he did know was that he didn’t appreciate this mess, and especially in front of Yvonne. It was clear that Regina was blocking. And judging from the expression on Yvonne’s face, she was doing a bang-up job at it, too.
He pulled away from Regina, and went and took a seat next to Yvonne, who got up and moved. She did not want to be bothered with anybody in this room. She didn’t want to be at this meeting because she suspected that it was about some mess. And right now she did not want to sit next to Curtis, who apparently did not want to sit with Regina, who definitely didn’t want this man anywhere near her.
“Coach Jackson, you called my department and demanded that I be at a meeting concerning some of Coach Parker’s players. My time is short and precious. I’d like to know why I need to be here like this.”
Kordell Bivens tried to hide his surprise. He’d never pegged Yvonne Fountain as somebody with enough guts to speak up. She always struck him as a woman who was concerned with making sure she did and said the right thing. Kordell couldn’t recall ever hearing Yvonne raise her voice to anybody.
Yvonne glanced over at Kordell and suppressed an urge to cut her eyes at him. She didn’t like him for the sole reason that he was best friends with Rico Sneed, and was always helping Rico get away with his dirt at Marquita’s expense. If that negro wasn’t so big and mean-looking, she would have gotten up, gone to his side of the table, and slapped the ugly off of him. But on second thought, she could hurt herself trying to slap all the ugly off of that man.
Gilead wasn’t used to small-fry faculty talking to him like that. Because it was rare that an untenured, non-tenure-track member of the faculty like Yvonne had the gumption to face off with Gilead. A lot of people at the university were afraid of Gilead. He had a lot of pull with the president and could execute a hit on an employee’s job in a heartbeat.
“Are you tenure track, Ms. Copeland?”
“Fountain. My last name is Fountain, Gilead,” Yvonne responded, knowing that she was pushing the envelope calling him by his first name. But she didn’t care right now. It was turning out to be a very bad morning and she just wasn’t up to being nice.
“Well then, Yvonne,” Gilead stated with a sly grin on his face. “Did you know that Sam Redmond is intent on hiring Dr. Darrell Copeland, who I believe is your ex-husband?”
Yvonne stood up and picked up her things. She didn’t know where this man was going with this mess but she wasn’t going to take it from him. Regina stared at Yvonne, surprised. She had no idea that Darrell Copeland was her babies’ daddy. Wonders never ceased.
“And his wife, Dr. Bettina Copeland, needs a job. We are looking for funding to pay her. Your job is eating up money that could be used as salary for a real faculty member—not some jacked-up janitress.”
Yvonne picked up her bag and backed away from the table. She’d heard that Gilead Jackson was mean and nasty and a piece of work. But no one had ever told her that this man was just plain evil. She looked up quickly, hoping that she’d successfully pushed back her tears.
Regina wrote a note and passed it over to Kordell. It said, “Let’s see ‘Polly Pocket’ get out of this one. You think Jesus gone swoop down and save the day?”
Kordell started laughing. He wondered why folks were always depending on Jesus. Because it was during moments just like these that people needed Jesus to lend them a helping hand. And here was Yvonne Fountain, who was as churchy as Rico’s annoying wife, standing there trying not to cry because Jesus had left her out on a ledge—high and dry.
Yvonne fought back those tears and put her hand to her heart. She thought, Lord, I need You. These people don’t fear You and they definitely don’t think You are capable of helping me when faced with them. Let them know that this is not the case.
“Why is Yvonne here, wasting time with the likes of you, Gilead?” Curtis demanded, glad that Maurice, who had been running late, had finally shown up.
“Sorry I’m late. Junior got sick at school and I had to go get him,” Maurice said breathlessly. It suddenly occurred to him that there was a whole lot of tension in this room, and that his cousin was standing there looking pissed and trying not to cry.
“I miss something?” he asked, now ready to jump in the fray. He didn’t sit back and let people mess over his kinfolk.
“Don’t worry, frat, ’cause I got this,” Curtis told him. He knew Kordell hated that they were Omegas because he and Rico had never gotten past having their applications to pledge the graduate chapter tossed right in the trash as soon as they were taken out of the mailbox.
“Like I said—why is Yvonne here? And why are you trying to beat her down, Gilead? What is it that you want to bully her into doing?”
It was clear that Gilead did not like being called out like that. He said, “She hasn’t turned in grades for three of the players you want to start at the game with Bouclair College. Remember the game you postponed after you whipped out a hidden clause on the president? Those players, dawg.”
“LeDarius Johnson, Kaylo Bailey, and Sherron Grey have to finish up an exterior painting project for the university’s day care center. It’s been raining a lot and we had to postpone it, so I sent in incompletes during the midterm grading period.”
“So, what you are saying is that without that grade, they are failing, right?” Gilead sneered.
Yvonne had enough of these people. She remembered the scripture “In this world you will have trials and tribulations. But cheer up, for I have overcome them all,” and felt a beautiful peace in her spirit. She also knew that just as with Joshua, God was right in this room with her. Her mother was right when she always told her and Rochelle to stay in the scriptures because you never knew when you’d need one at a moment’s notice.
“No. Those boys are excellent students and a joy to teach. But this assignment is thirty percent of their grade and I want them to get the A-pluses they have been working so hard for all year. That’s why I sent in the incompletes. I wanted them to get the A-plus instead of an A-minus or B-plus.”
“Well, what about Sonny Washington III and DeMarcus Brown? I noticed that they have incompletes as well. Are you saying that they are on the verge of an A-plus, too?”
Yvonne started laughing. She could now see where this was going. Trina, as well as Rochelle, who served as legal counsel for the university, had schooled her on what was going on in the Athletic Department. Gilead was trying to bully her so that Curtis Parker couldn’t play the players most capable of kicking Bouclair College’s butt when they faced off in two weeks. He knew, she knew, everybody on campus knew that Sonny III, or June Bug Washington, and DeMarcus Brown didn’t have what it took to take on those thugs from Bouclair College.
The Panthers needed some players who had skills and just enough gangsta in them to know when and how to get down and dirty when they went up against those criminals masquerading as basketball players from Bouclair College. They also needed to start the players who would do what their coach told them to do to win. They needed some players who listened, behaved, could play the game, and had some sense.
“They have incompletes because I’m trying my best not to fail them,” Yvonne said as she put her bag back on the table and pulled out a very pretty pink leather Dell laptop.
Yvonne opened the computer and turned it on.
“This will only take a minute. I just got this and it’s fast.”
Gilead looked at Kordell, who shrugged as if to say, “The heck if I know what this crazy girl is doing.”
Yvonne tap, tap, tapped on the laptop keys for about twenty seconds. Regina rapped her fancy red ink pen on the side of the table, hoping that Yvonne would get the message and hurry up with whatever HGTV activity she was taking up their time to do.
“Done,” Yvonne said, smiling brightly and looking as if she held the winning ticket for the North Carolina Lottery.
Curtis thought she looked adorable with her face all lit up like that. He made a quick mental comparison between the two women and Yvonne won hands down. Regina was definitely the better dressed of the two women—if you focused solely on the obvious expense of their clothing.
Regina was wearing a forest green two-piece St. John’s suit with black suede boots and a black suede shoulder bag. Her immaculate light brown weave with reddish blonde streaks running through it was straight and hanging down around her shoulders. Regina was tall and striking, and she didn’t do a thing for Curtis right now. The girl didn’t have an ounce of personality. And Curtis was not happy with the way she was suddenly so chummy with Gilead Jackson.
Yvonne didn’t have on anything close to what Regina was wearing and she looked ten times better. First, her work attire didn’t always call for a business suit. But it was clear that Miss Lady was suited up for work and looking fit and good, too.
Curtis thought her black overalls with the tiny red bows all over them, long-sleeved white tee, red oversize oxford shirt, and red-and-black LeBron James athletic shoes were perfect. Her dark brown curly ponytail was pulled through a black hat with red bows that matched the overalls. Curtis knew that ponytail was real and didn’t have an ounce of weave in it. He had to refrain from the urge to tug at it.
Those overalls fit Yvonne’s body so well that Curtis could only surmise she’d bought the outfit at Miss Thang’s Holy Ghost Corner and Church Woman Boutique. It was the only place he could think of that would have those overalls and the matching hat.
“Do you think you can quit tap-tapping on that laptop before Jesus returns,” Regina snapped.
Yvonne cut her eyes at Regina Young and said, “What could you possibly know about Jesus, with all of your rotten fruit clinging to you like mold?”
Gilead and Kordell wanted to say “Ouch” because that little janitor had just sliced Regina down to the bone.
Normally, Regina would have torn somebody talking to her like that to shreds. But she opted to back down this time. The glint in Polly Pocket’s eyes let her know that she would do well to leave Yvonne alone.
Plus, she was eager to get on with the business of the day. And after getting exactly what she wanted earlier this morning, Regina knew that Gilead was expecting her to make good on the promises she had vowed to keep during a pivotal moment in their earlier meeting—mainly finding an airtight way to keep Kaylo Bailey, LeDarius Johnson, and Sherron Grey on the bench during the Bouclair College game.
Right now Gilead Jackson was frustrated, exhausted, and mean as a snake. In addition to all of that action with Regina, there was Prudence Baylor, and of course his wife—couldn’t forget her. Folks just didn’t understand. Life could get real stressful and complicated for a brother like him.
“Done what?” Gilead asked, wondering what all of that tippy-tippy tapping-tapping on that prissy-looking computer had to do with him and this meeting. Yvonne Copeland had been summoned here to sign papers certifying that the three players in question were failing her class. And she was also expected to sign another set of papers that indicated that June Bug Washington and DeMarcus Brown were in good standing and could play in the Bouclair College game.
“I’ve calculated and sent in the grades for the five players, so that your department can put the three with passing grades in the game, and give June Bug and DeMarcus a helping hand to the bench, where they belong.”
“But you can’t do that with incompletes,” Kordell said, jumping up in Yvonne’s face. He could not believe that this goofy little heifer was messing up everything with a click of the mouse on that pink laptop. Who did important business on a pink laptop?
Yvonne backed away from Kordell Bivens, reached down in her overall side pocket, and pulled out a pair of red-handled pliers that she kept on hand when working with those athletes. Some of those little negroes could get crazy if grade time clashed with a big game.
Maurice jumped up but wasn’t as fast as Curtis, who practically leaped over that table to get at Kordell, who was about to cuss his own self out for acting so impulsively. He was always getting on Rico about acting without thinking things through, and here he was needing to take his own advice.
Kordell backed away from Yvonne fast. But not fast enough to escape Curtis’s fist making contact with his face. He fell backward against the wall, and was getting ready to throw his own punch when Maurice body-slammed him against the wall and Yvonne, with her little self, advanced on him with those dainty red pliers.
“Don’t you ever, ever blink at this girl wrong, Kordell,” Curtis hissed. “Or I swear I’ll mess you up. I’ll mess you up, man—MESS YOU UP.”
Regina was now at the door, with all of her fancy, bogusly drawn papers still in her briefcase, while Gilead made a feeble effort to break up the fray between his coaches. He was careful, though. He knew this heifer was Maurice’s cousin, and that those Fountains loved a good fight. But he had not expected such a reaction from Curtis Parker—never thought a Goody Two-Shoes like Yvonne Copeland, or whatever her name was, held any appeal for a player like his head basketball coach.
Kordell collected himself and left. As mean and hateful as he was, Kordell Bivens was still smart. He knew that he could not win this fight. In fact, if he stayed a moment longer he was going to get his tail whipped, not to mention lose his prowess as Herr Doktor if Yvonne got a hold of him with those pliers. He’d forgotten how gangsta the Fountains and Parkers were. They had all grown up in Cashmere Estates when it was still the projects. He, on the other hand, had grown up in the middle-class Hillside Park.
“So,” Gilead Jackson said, “three players are back in the game, and June Bug and DeMarcus are benched for the rest of the season.”
“I didn’t know that Kaylo, LeDarius, and Sherron had ever been out, Gilead,” Maurice said.
Gilead chose to ignore that comment and said, “So which one of you is going to call the Athletic Department’s biggest supporters and tell them that their grandson and son are not eligible to play?”
“You are the only one with Bishop Sonny Washington’s and Reverend Marcel Brown’s phone numbers, Gilead. So I guess it’ll have to be you,” Curtis told him and made a gesture toward Yvonne to get her things.
“The Washington and Brown families always express their feelings through their bank accounts,” Gilead said. “When they are happy, they give generously to the school and to our department. And when they are pissed, well, I don’t want to think about how they’ll act when somebody like Yvonne here pisses them off. Humph, they may even let Sam know that he doesn’t need people like her here.”
Gilead was about to jab his finger in Yvonne’s direction but thought better of it when he saw the deadly expression in Curtis Parker’s eyes.
Parker’s nose is wide open over Polly Pocket. Makes me wonder how that “I love to go to the library” Zeta flew low enough under his radar to get that close to the brother’s emotions, Gilead thought.
“Come on, Cuz, let’s get out of here,” Maurice said, thinking that Gilead Jackson was full of Hell and didn’t have any business running the Athletic Department. Sometimes it was so hard to wait on God to work things out. But he knew that this was something that only God could work out. Putting his finger in this pie would be the precursor to creating a great big mess.
Yvonne gathered up her things and hoped that she could keep her tears from falling while she was still in this building. Curtis noticed that she was getting close to losing it. He grabbed her hand and led her out of the conference room.
It was taking everything in him not to wrap the baby up in his arms and make it all better for her. Curtis couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like this about a woman. He stood at her car waiting for her to open the door and get in. He liked this car—chic, artsy, and classy, just like Yvonne. Maurice came and stood next to Curtis to make sure his cousin was okay. He hated to see those tears streaming down her cheeks. The girl had already been to Hell and back and didn’t need this.
“Baby, don’t cry,” Curtis said, heedless of the expression on Maurice’s face. “Nothing is going to happen to you, your job, and those baby girls. You hear me, Yvonne. Baby, you are going to be all right.”
Yvonne nodded and tried to stop the tears. It felt as if the weight of the past two years were pressing down on her like a ton of bricks. Part of her hurt like heck, and the other part felt that she was being washed clean with some kind of sparkling elixir from Heaven. It was a most incredulous, yet confusing feeling.
Curtis took her hand off the steering wheel and kissed it. “You okay now?”
Yvonne nodded and smiled through her tears.
“Where you headed?”
“The hairdresser.”
“Will I see you tonight?”
Yvonne sniffed up the last of her tears and said, “Tonight? What’s going on tonight?”
“I saw your name on the list of folks with invitations to the Athletic Department’s Annual Fall Semester Reception at the Sheraton Imperial.”
“You mean ‘The Negro Imperial,’” Yvonne told him with a smile. In the middle of all that was going on, she’d almost forgotten about tonight—the main reason for getting her hair done and the makeover her sister had been pestering her to get for months on end.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Curtis said. “There is my baby’s winning smile.”
He conveniently ignored Maurice’s poking at him and whispering, “Can you school a bro on what’s happening.”
“You know that just about everything that’s hip, hot, and happening in black Durham goes down at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel.”
“True dat,” Curtis said. Black folks in Durham loved themselves some Sheraton Imperial, and were always holding some kind of major event there.
“So, Curtis,” Yvonne said, smiling, “I’ll see you there tonight.”
“Why don’t you pick her up at the house, dawg? She lives in Cashmere Estates, less than a mile from your town house.”
“Oh, really,” Curtis said, grinning. This was getting better and better. He said, “Well, since we are neighbors, I’ll just have to pick you up fo sho’. What time?”
“Six,” Maurice told both of them. “The reception starts at seven, so pick up Cuz at six.”
“Six it is,” Curtis said and closed Yvonne’s car door. He stood on the parking lot watching her car until it was no longer in sight.
“You got it bad, you know that don’t you, dawg?” Maurice said.
“Forget you, man,” Curtis said. But all Maurice did was laugh. He was enjoying this. Never thought he’d see his best friend fall for a woman worth falling for.